When a credit card company sponsors a promotion offering extra “reward” points for certain credit card transactions, the current promotional process is very slow and cumbersome and has very limited dynamics. For example, a credit card provider must send out inserts or must print on the body of its statements, or must send out an email to all customers, notifying all customers about the promotion. Then it takes some time for this promotional message to propagate. Also, typically, to keep it simple, such promotions are limited to just one category of good or service, such as, for example, automobile fuel, groceries, certain types of house wares, etc.
What is needed is a system and method that allows card issuers to manipulate or control rewards based on time, geography, context of use, and type of merchandise or merchant, each singly or in any combination.